Most typical printing jobs include an interaction between a customer or similar source and a print production company. In particular, a customer will create a document which may then be printed in a larger production run at a production printer. For the production printer, a significant amount of time is devoted to pre-press activities such as adjustment of color and tone to achieve a close match to a proof provided by the customer. For a large production run, the production printer will recover expenses incurred in the pre-press activities by a volume of printing. However, in a short run printing job, the production printer is less likely to realize expenses due to the reduced volume of printing.
In certain printing jobs, for example short run printing jobs, it is therefore an advantage to reduce the amount of time spent on pre-press activities. A particular complication for the production printer is that while a customer proof provides a visual reference to the customer's expectations, it provides no information regarding the customer's acceptable range of color variations for the provided proof. It is typically the case that any two printers will output a common document having differing tones, hues and quality of color, possibly rendering an unacceptable document for production printing from the customer's point of view. Although a customer may send a proof to the production printer in order to provide a visual reference identifying his expectations, it does not indicate a tolerance for mismatch or color variations that will likely occur at the production printer's unit. For a typical printing job, the time between selection and final press may also include providing a return proof to the customer for final approval.
Color tolerances are difficult to specify in the context of a document and it is further likely that the tolerances may be different for different parts of the document. For example, a document containing a graphic of a company trademark is likely to have very tight color tolerances, while the colors used in a pie chart or histogram may have a very loose color tolerance. Further, color tolerances can vary between different parts of an image. For example, skin tones may have a tighter tolerance than the colors of objects such as clothing or automobiles. Finally, color tolerances may be dependent upon a final intended use of the document. For example, advertisers may be more concerned about the color tolerances on their product than about the colors of background or models. Likewise, pictures of sports team uniforms may require a more accurate reproduction than other elements of the picture.
Accordingly, there is a need to overcome these and other color management problems and to provide an efficient and economically practical method for communicating color tolerances within a source document to an end production printer. Further, any method or system for overcoming the problem should be simple for the customer to implement, without the need for extensive training or explanation.